The short answer: Exact Online gives every administration its own email address per document type, the digital postbox. With a forwarding rule in Outlook, invoices land there automatically. That works for tidy invoices attached by known senders. A reminder, an invoice inside a mail thread or mail from a new sender often slips through. Glimps's Inbox Agent reads your Microsoft 365 mailbox itself and picks up every invoice, those cases included.
This guide shows how to set up the route through Exact's digital postbox, where invoices get stuck on the way, and how to solve it. I checked the steps in the Exact knowledge base on 18 October 2026. The sources are at the bottom.
Route 1: Exact Online's digital postbox
Step 1. Find your administration's email address
Every administration already has a digital postbox. Go to User name > My Exact Online > My account details > My digital postboxes and click your postbox. Under Linked email addresses, click the document type for purchase invoices. The Email address field shows the address invoices must go to. The postbox name is only a label, not the address. You need the role Manage subscription or Manage digital postboxes.
Step 2. Fill in the allowed senders
On the same screen you fill in the Allowed senders per document type. Mail from a sender not on that list goes to Blocked emails. There you choose per mail to release it, release it and add the sender, or reject it. If a sender uses an alias, you must add that alias too.
Step 3. Set a forwarding rule in Outlook
Exact itself points to automatic forwarding in Outlook. Create a rule in the mailbox where invoices arrive, for example accounts payable@, that forwards mail to the address from step 1. Then test with a real invoice and check in Exact whether it appears as a booking proposal or under Blocked emails. That shows you right away which sender Exact receives.
Using Gmail? According to Exact, Gmail cannot forward directly to the digital postbox. Exact then advises forwarding to an Outlook account first.
Where invoices get stuck
Exact's knowledge base names a number of rules that decide what does and does not come in:
- An attachment is required. An invoice that sits only in the body of the mail is not accepted.
- Reminders and quotations are rejected. The scanning service only processes invoices and receipts, and rejects quotations and reminders. A reminder with the original invoice attached therefore needs manual work.
- One invoice per page, one supplier per document. A document with invoices from more than one supplier is rejected.
- Limits on files. The scanning service accepts PDF, TIFF and JPG up to 15 MB and 150 pages. When the postbox is full, new mail is not picked up.
- Only what is forwarded arrives. An invoice that reaches a colleague, or hangs on a mail about something else, only goes along if the rule catches it.
Power Automate looks like a way out, but the Exact Online connector there is marked deprecated and has no action for purchase invoices. Make only has a community-maintained app.
Route 2: Glimps's Inbox Agent
The Inbox Agent works the other way round. It does not wait for a forwarding rule; it reads your Microsoft 365 mailbox itself and looks at what is attached to each mail, not at the subject.
- Connect your mailbox. Sign in with your Microsoft 365 account and choose the mailbox where invoices arrive. That takes a few minutes.
- The Inbox Agent reads along. It recognises which mail carries an invoice, even when the subject is about something else. Questions, quotes and newsletters it leaves alone.
- The invoice is ready in Glimps. Read, coded and ready for approval or posting. The processed mail moves to a folder in Outlook, so you see what is already in.
What it picks up: invoices and credit notes, receipts, reminders with the invoice attached, invoices a colleague forwarded and invoices inside a mail thread. What it leaves alone: questions about an invoice, quotes and order confirmations, remittance advice, newsletters and everything from senders you exclude. When it is not sure, it throws nothing away. That mail goes to your dashboard, so you can still pick it up with one click.
A few things that make the difference in practice:
- Look first. In look-only mode the Inbox Agent changes nothing and shows which invoices it would pick up. You see right away how many invoices now bypass your processing.
- No duplicate invoices. Glimps recognises the same invoice, even when it is sent again, forwarded or has another file name.
- Suspicious mail set aside. An unknown sender or a different account number than usual? Glimps sets that invoice aside so you look first.
- The Glimps folder in Outlook. An invoice in your own inbox? Drag it into the Glimps folder and it is picked up, even mail from months ago.
The Inbox Agent is on every plan. If you do not use Microsoft 365, your administration in Glimps has its own invoice address you forward to with a rule.
In practice: Vitacress Real processes about 750 purchase invoices a month with Glimps, from 317 suppliers. 80 to 90% of them reach Exact Online without manual work. Read the Vitacress Real story.
Which route fits you?
- Exact's digital postbox fits when you receive few invoices, from fixed senders, always as a PDF attachment, to one address.
- The Inbox Agent fits when invoices arrive with different people, as a reminder or in a mail thread, and you do not want any to slip through.
Want to see which invoices now bypass your administration? Start with the look-only mode of the Inbox Agent, or open the interactive demo.